Saturday, May 15, 2010

Not much going on around here today. We're just prepping for a busy Sunday, what with the textbook rally at the Capital in the morning, then the show at its usual time, followed by Threadgill's. And here I was thinking part of the fun of being godless is you got to sleep in on Sunday! Ah well. Here is some kooky fun from the mailbag today, to put smiles on all your heathen faces. Also, our "Christian Psychiatrist" dude wrote me back, but I'll get on that later. Toodles!

Dear Atheist Experience Show,

I think it's a shame that most of the people who call-in to your show are either ignorant of the scripture or they are merely religious people that do not have a clue about what they are saying because they have never heard the voice of God anyways. It's obvious that God "IS" real and it is also obvious that He has never sent anyone, an actual child of God, to speak on your show and probably never will. Here is why, all human beings in their natural born state are wicked and evil, such as yourselves. Most religious people, churchies, just cannot figure this out. You have experienced atheism, but you have never experienced God because you are the children of Satan. This is why Yesu,

I think I actually will start calling Christians "churchies"! I like that!

Hmm, so this person seems to believe in some form of salvation through grace which strongly implies that people have no choice in the matter. If one is going to take such a Calvinist approach, then it isn't clear to me what they think is being accomplished by sending this email.

Definitely not a Poe. I've known people like this. They say the usual buzzwords: I'm not religious, I have a relationship with Jesus, just going to church doesn't mean anything, the number of saved people are only a handful, etc.

A lot of these people have "home church", if you know what I mean. I knew one who told me steeples were pagan phallic symbols and she wouldn't go to a church that had one.

A concise argument in favor of apathy. There's hardly anything more evil than constructing an elaborate rationalization of letting everything rot and doing nothing to improve the state of anything.

The person writing this presumably owns a computer and is sitting in a decently warmed room, will have little trouble getting food and drink on the table, and probably has at least a small stack of books about his favorite subject.

All these are fruits of the endeavor to improve the state of humanity, the world, the future.

I conclude that the author of theis e-mail is an evil hypocrite and likes it, but is too much of a coward to take the next logical step and rid the world of his presence.

"No True Scotsman" needs to be changed to "No True Christian." Whenever this fallacy is erected these days, 99% of the time it's a Christian complaining that other Christians are not the true Christians, as they are.

"Hmm, so this person seems to believe in some form of salvation through grace which strongly implies that people have no choice in the matter. If one is going to take such a Calvinist approach, then it isn't clear to me what they think is being accomplished by sending this email."

The Calvinist idea seems to be that even though everything is predestined, we humans have no idea and no way of knowing who'll be saved and who won't, so sending emails could be a way to function as one of God's vessels. It would mean that God may have selected one or more people who read this email and has rigged their brains to be receptive (read: gullible) to the message of salvation, so this email is actually all part of God's Great Plan(tm).

Basically a roundabout way of saying God's a kid in the sandbox with extremely meticulous plans for his GI Joes.

"You are not the Devil like many people say on your show, but you are one of his many children. [sic] Satan's children, the wicked, or the world will be burned up and then casted into the Lake of Fire."

Now, imagine if someone who believes this manages to get political power. With a belief that you can't fix the world - only God can do that, can you imagine the policies they would support and the damage they would do to the world?

If you had a baby and took his favorite toy away from him, tell me he wouldn't stab your face in an instant if you granted him a knife!

The babies I've known would be just as likely to think "new best toy" and proceed to stab themselves in the face. I think you may be ascribing a maliciousness that doesn't exist. Certainly they are developing a sense of others existing outside of themselves. "You're a solipsist"?

Thank you for showing us that "real Christians" do not believe in free will.You were born a child of god and us atheists are born of the devil and both of us are destined for our pre-determined, eternal fates, no matter what.So what is the point of preaching then?

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PLEASE NOTE: The Atheist Experience has moved to a new location, and this blog is now closed to comments. To participate in future discussions, please visit http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/axp.The Atheist Experience is a weekly live call-in television show sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin. This independently-run blog (not sponsored by the ACA) features contributions from current and former hosts and co-hosts of the show.